


sharp and sweet

by kerrykins



Category: Sharp Objects (TV)
Genre: F/F, No Plot/Plotless, fiction&femslashevent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-03 18:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20457485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerrykins/pseuds/kerrykins
Summary: Camille sits on the porch of her house. Adora makes amaretto sours. Jackie drinks them.





	sharp and sweet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elle_nic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_nic/gifts).

> i literally didn't know how to tag this oop
> 
> this story is for elle, who is one of the most lovely people i know & who i also bullied into watching sharp objects with me! te adora mi amiga <3333 you're the best

Summer nights in Wind Gap were heavy, sticky, and suffocating. Yet Camille found herself sitting on the steps of the veranda with her not-water-but-actually-vodka bottle in hand, recently refilled. Sweat coated her back like a stubborn second skin, her thoughts drowned out by the chirps of cicadas and pitch black night.

The century-old wood planks groaned when Jackie seated herself next to Camille, ice cubes in her whiskey rattling in its glass. It was too dark to make out the older woman’s face, the only source of light in the Preaker estate being a bedroom all those floors up. It projected shadows across the dry grass lawn, ones that followed Adora across the room and lurked in the corners of the window.

Camille was searching for far away lights on the horizon. She didn’t find them— however, she did hear the distant, ghostly wail of a train. Wind Gap had a way of doing that, erasing the rest of the world, leaving only a slice of southern hell behind. It reminded her of Greek myths, when voyagers never came home because they’d succumbed to some wicked sorcery and eventually forgotten themselves. Wind Gap was where tragic heroes came to die, a town raised on lies and blood and screams in the night, all of which went ignored.

“Thought you were trying to cut back on drinking,” Camille finally said, after a good fifteen minutes of silence. She unscrewed her water bottle to take a long sip, relishing the cold burn of vodka in her throat.

“I thought  _ we  _ were trying to cut back on drinking,” Jackie retorted, not missing a beat. For an long-suffering alcoholic, her mind was shockingly sharp. “Deal’s off, girlie. And I don’t know if you know, but Adora’s sours ain’t easy to pass up. Say what you want about the woman but those drinks of hers sure are something.”

“They’re too sweet.”

Jackie huffed a short bark of laughter. “You try tellin’ her that, you’ll end up getting fed to the pigs tomorrow.”

“What’s this about pigs?” Adora’s voice, cool and honeyed, rang dangerously in the open air. Camille didn’t need to turn around to know what she looked like; all dolled up in a pink nightgown with a nightly amaretto sour in hand, her hair tied back with a satin bow. She was watching them with a politely curious, yet calculating expression. The same expression she’d greeted Camille with when she’d showed up to cover a story about dead little girls in a dead little town. Four years since then and Wind Gap was still the same deadly place Camille had grown up in.

“The pig economy is in shambles,” Jackie said, taking on a faux-serious tone. “We were merely discussing how many figures you make a year.”

“Mm,” Adora said. She didn’t sound like she was listening. “I came out to speak with Camille. Jackie, why don’t you give us a moment?” Adora wasn’t really asking a question. Words seldom left her mouth but when they did, they were in the form of a careful threat.

“Don’t wanna end up sleeping on the couch like Alan,” Jackie muttered under her breath, so only Camille could hear. “All right,” she said normally, rising to her feet with a sigh. “But only because I love you.”

Adora was silent. Then, “There’s some more sours in the kitchen.” She stepped forward and Camille can only assume she gave Jackie one of those chaste pecks on the cheek. They acted nothing like a couple. Jackie was very catty about it all, taking every opportunity to flirt or tease Adora. Adora remained as difficult to understand as ever, unreachable and cold. In that regard, very little had changed since their relationship began. Yet Camille sensed a shift in the atmosphere, a barely-there lightness to Adora. It arrived in the form of dry smiles and open windows and Adora’s full eyelashes.

Sometimes Camille thought she was imagining it all because she was so desperate for evidence of change. Maybe her mother wasn’t capable of change.

Adora hovered for a moment, a sudden weariness to her posture as she settled back into a chair, its iron legs scraping against wood. “Come here.” 

Inside, the house lit up like a Christmas tree, flooding the veranda with warm, yellow light. Camille could see Jackie serving herself another drink at the counter. Adora didn’t comment on it, though she shot it a quick glance over her shoulder. Camille took the chair opposite Adora, rather than sit beside her. She needed that distance, no matter how small.

“Are you still working for that newspaper?”

The last time she had asked Camille such a question had been when Marian was alive. Now that there was light, Camille could see her. Now she appeared not as some ghostly apparition of Camille’s worst nightmares, but a real person that crossed her legs when she sat and didn’t know how to talk to her daughter. That didn’t mean Camille forgave her for anything. 

“Fine. Still getting emails about that piece I wrote four years ago.” She wondered if Adora even knew what an email was.

“Oh. Good.” Adora wasn’t looking at her, invested in tracing the rim of her sour’s glass. Camille noticed that her knuckles were turning white from clutching the glass too tightly.

“How about you?” Camille began cautiously. “Things with Jackie?”

Adora blinked, looking confused for a moment before replying, "Good. Very good.”

“Good.” Camille didn’t know what else to say. There wasn't anything left to talk about. They both drank heavily in a silence that could have been almost been companionable, had they been a different mother and a different daughter. Good, good, good, was better than ruined, wicked, ripe.

___

Jackie stirred her amaretto sour with the teaspoon for the sugar, something Adora always admonished her for. Jackie never listened and Adora never stopped nagging. It made for a kind of equilibrium between them.  _ If you want a teaspoon get one yourself, instead of using whatever you find lying around,  _ was what Adora said, with the utmost sternness. Then she’d pull Jackie in for a kiss, her long nails lightly scraping against Jackie’s cheek. She had only drawn blood once, for which she never apologised for— but later that day Adora wordlessly pressed a precious bottle of wine from the cellar into Jackie’s hand. In the night she fussed over Jackie like a sick child. Though, she’d end up waking Jackie up at some ungodly hour of the morning with the offer of sex. That was the sort of apology Jackie had learned to expect.

Adora didn’t know how to say she was sorry. To apologise would be to acknowledge one’s mistakes and take action to ensure they wouldn’t be repeated.

Jackie couldn’t help but wonder if Adora kept her around only because she didn’t have anyone else. Marian was long dead and Amma was at college and Camille was Camille. She had divorced Alan as soon as she’d returned home after a brief stint at the local prison, free of all charges. No one was able to prove that she’d been responsible for the deaths of Natalie and Ann, or even Marian.

She peered around the corner, watching Adora and Camille out on the veranda. They weren’t yelling at each other, though that wasn’t enough reason to celebrate yet. Both were quiet and distant in their own ways. They had never gotten along well.

As Jackie debated whether or not to check on them, Adora strode into the house, closing the screen door behind her. Her expression gave away nothing.

“No,” Adora said crisply, setting her now empty glass on the counter. Jackie hadn’t been expecting anything else and only shrugged in resign. Adora made her ascent upstairs, stopping to give Jackie a meaningful look. Jackie followed Adora into the bedroom, knowing exactly what it was Adora wanted.

Camille saw the lights in her mother’s room flicker off, the drapes pulled. She only spared it a glance before bringing an unlit cigarette to her lips.


End file.
